Exhibition in Vienna
Marina Abramović
Exhibition in Vienna
Marina Abramović
Exhibition at the Albertina Modern Vienna
Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović
Exhibition at the Albertina Modern
10 October 2025 to 1 March 2026
The retrospective originally planned for the Kunstforum Vienna is now taking place at the Albertina Modern. The exhibition spaces were be curated jointly by the Kunstforum and the artist herself.
This exhibition is a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kunsthaus Zürich, Bank Austria Kunstforum Vienna, and the Albertina, Vienna. Marina Abramović will also be closely involved throughout the process.
And we were already there!
The exhibition got under Susi’s skin – in the truest sense of the word. Anyone who knows Marina Abramović knows that her art can be quite a bloody affair. And anyone encountering her here in Vienna for the first time will sense how deeply art can move.
On display is an overview – or rather, insight – of her previous performances. Room by room, you get closer to Abramović. Step by step, her power becomes more tangible. The power she needs to realize and express her ideas, and the power that her art ultimately conveys. -> Jump straight to the exhibition text?
Yours, Céline & Susi
Marina Abramović
Tickets
The details
at a glance
Exhibition
Marina Abramović
Exhibition at the Albertina Modern
10 October 2025 to 1 March 2026
Where:
Albertina MODERN
Karlsplatz 5
1010 Wien
Austria
Metro: U1, U2, U4: Exit: Karlsplatz
Opening Hours:
Daily, from 10.00 h to 18.00 h
Prices:
EUR 17.90 for adults 27 and older
EUR 15.90 for seniors over 65, adults up to 26
Free admission for children under 19
Those are the special exhibition prices! We sell them at the same price like the museum. So it would be nice if you would support our work 😉
Who is
Marina Abramović?
Marina Abramović was born in 1946 in Belgrade. She studied painting but soon turned her attention to performance art — a genre that was barely established at the time. In the 1970s, she gained international recognition for radical performances in which she subjected her body to extreme physical and psychological challenges.
She shot to fame in 1974 with her performance “Rhythm 0”. In it, Abramović offered her body to the audience for six hours — entirely passive — along with 72 objects, ranging from feathers and roses to a gun, next to it a bullet. The audience could do whatever they wanted. Things began harmlessly, but after three hours, the atmosphere became disturbing: her clothes were cut off, her skin was sliced, someone licked her blood, and she came close to being assaulted. She cried, but she remained silent. She remained the object — until a small group of people stood between her and the rest to protect her. The work questioned how far people would go when given total control — and how quickly violence can emerge.
A key chapter in her career was her long-term collaboration with German artist Ulay. The pair staged intense, often confrontational performances — culminating in their symbolic breakup on the Great Wall of China in 1988. The performance lasted three months. They each started from opposite ends of the wall, and when they met in the middle, it marked the end of their relationship.
Abramović later continued working solo, including her spectacular retrospective “The Artist Is Present” at MoMA in New York in 2010. For three months — eight hours a day — she sat silently across from museum visitors. The line to sit opposite her stretched for hours, even though a curator had initially said, “This is a crazy idea. No one in New York has time to sit in a chair and stare at you.” But staring into her eyes, unable to look away, triggered strong emotions in many — some even cried. One particularly moving moment was when Ulay sat opposite her again. Abramović teared up — a deeply emotional reunion.
Now almost 80 years old (though she looks much younger!), she’s still active and embracing new technologies, from NFTs to AI. And we’re sure the Albertina Modern exhibition will reflect that too!
Why is she important to art history?
Marina Abramović is considered a pioneer of performance art. She expanded the boundaries of what art could be — placing the focus not on a finished object, but on process, presence, and direct interaction with the audience. Her work raises questions about limits — physical, emotional, and social — challenging both herself and those watching. Many of her performances are now seen as some of the most influential works in contemporary art, and she has played a major role in shaping the entire genre.
Here’s a great YouTube link if you’d like to learn more: Marina speaks about her work in a TED Talk.
Between silence and intensity, an almost sacred atmosphere unfolds within the exhibition spaces. This begins the moment one enters the first room, where “The Artist Is Present” (2010) is shown. Videos of the participants and the artist herself are projected onto screens, allowing visitors not only to see their facial expressions but also to sense the emotions behind them. As they walk through this “tunnel of emotions”, visitors in turn become part of this fifteen-year-old performance.
About the Exhibition at the Albertina Modern
Marina Abramović
What follows is almost beyond words: seventy-two objects from “Rhythm 0” (1974) are laid out on a table, while a video behind shows guests using these objects on, in, or with her. It’s like witnessing an accident — you want to look away, yet you can’t. Disgust, shame, anger, as well as love, humility and compassion, are all felt at once, shifting and intertwining.
It is this strange mixture of horror and reverence, of sorrow and inspiration, that can also be felt in the next room, where the artist appears in a white dress upon a mountain of bloody cattle bones. Marina Abramović sings Yugoslav funeral songs as she cleans the blood from the bones. The red walls of the room intensify everything even further. This performance is titled “Balkan Baroque”, for which she received the Golden Lion at the 1997 Venice Biennale. I saw a photograph of this performance in Venice, at the Ca’ Pesaro.
Even from here, one can already hear the screams coming from the next room — the artist’s own cries, part of performances such as “Freeing the Voice” (1975). In her work, Abramović explores the limits of body and mind. She tests endurance, pain and consciousness, rendering these experiences visible to the viewer.
It is in the rooms towards the back that one can truly begin to interact with her art. Since the 1980s, Abramović has been creating what she calls “Transitory Objects” — works made of copper, iron and crystals, conceived as energetic sculptures that remind us to reconnect with our own bodies. In the museum, she invites visitors to do just that: to sit on the stones, to touch them, or to walk through a portal of power stones.
The live performances also take place in the rear part of the exhibition. What exactly happens there may neither be photographed nor described. So, have courage — and let yourself be surprised.
Just before leaving the exhibition, visitors are once again given the chance to become part of the artist’s practice and to learn from Abramović herself. To prepare for her long-durational performances, she developed a method designed to strengthen willpower and concentration, and to cultivate a heightened awareness of space and time. One of the best-known exercises is “Counting the Rice”. At the Albertina Modern, visitors now have the opportunity to take part themselves — to separate grains of rice from lentils and count them. The activity can be done quietly, in one’s own rhythm, for as long as one wishes. The crucial moment, Abramović says, comes when impatience and resistance arise. It is then that a deep calm may emerge — a stillness suspended in the eternity of time.
Summary
The exhibition touches, moves, and lingers — felt within body and mind long after the visit. Marina Abramović succeeds in making the invisible visible: pain, endurance, devotion, presence.
Not to be missed!
Yours,
Susi
Official website of the Albertina Modern: www.albertina.at/albertina-modern/
Text rights: © Céline Mülich, 2025. Based on the official press release by the Albertina Modern.
Exhibition-Visit: by Susanne Vukan.
Image credits — Albertina Modern:
Who is Marina Abramović
Image 1: Ulay / Marina Abramović | Imponderabilia, 1977 | Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
© Ulay / Marina Abramović. Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives / Bildrecht, Vienna, 2025;
Photo: Giovanna dal Magro
Image 2: Marina Abramović | Four Crosses, 2019 | Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
© Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives / Bildrecht, Vienna 2025
Image credit — Céline Mülich: 2025
Ca’ Pesaro, Venice: Marina Abramović, “Balkan Baroque” (DETAIL) 1997
And all the exhibition pictures in Vienna: taken by Susanne Vukan and with permission of the Albertina Modern.